Jump blues
Encyclopedia
Jump blues is an up-tempo blues
usually played by small groups and featuring horn
s. It was very popular in the 1940s, and the movement was a precursor to the arrival of rhythm and blues
and rock and roll
. More recently, there was renewed interest in jump blues in the 1990s as part of the swing revival
.
s such as those of Lionel Hampton
and Lucky Millinder
. These early 1940s bands produced musicians such as Louis Jordan
, Jack McVea
, Earl Bostic
, and Arnett Cobb
.
Blues
and jazz
were part of the same musical world, with many accomplished musicians straddling both genres. Jump blues, or simply "jump," was an extension of the boogie-woogie craze. Jump bands such as the Tympany Five
, which came into being at the same time as the boogie-woogie
revival, achieved maximum effect with an eight-to-the-bar boogie-woogie style.
Lionel Hampton
recorded a stomping big band blues, "Flying Home
," in 1942. Featuring a choked, screaming tenor sax
performance, the song was a hit in the "race" category. When released, however, Billboard
described the tune as "an unusually swingy side" "with a bright bounce in the medium tempo and a steady drive maintained, it's a jumper that defies standing still". Billboard also noted that Benny Goodman
had a hand in writing the tune "back in the old Goodman Sextet Days". Billboard went on to state that "Apart from the fact that it is Lionel Hampton's theme, "Flying Home" is a sure-fire to make the youngsters shed their nickels-and gladly."
Five years later Billboard noted inclusion of "Flying Home" in a show that was "strictly for hepsters who go for swing and boogie, and beats in loud, hot unrelenting style a la Lionel Hampton." "...the Hampton band gave with everything, practically wearing itself out with such numbers as Hey Bop a Re Bop, Hamp Boogie and Flying Home..."
Both Hampton and Jordan combined the popular boogie-woogie rhythm, a grittier version of swing-era saxophone styles as exemplified by Coleman Hawkins
and Ben Webster
, and playful, humorous lyrics or verbal asides laced with jive talk
.
As this urban, jazz-based music became more popular, both bluesmen and jazz musicians who wanted to "play for the people" began favoring a heavy, insistent beat. This music appealed to black listeners who no longer wished to be identified with "life down home."
Jump accomplishes with three horns and a rhythm section what a big band does with an ensemble of sixteen. The tenor saxophone is the most prominent instrument in jump. Jump groups, employed to play for jitterbugs at a much lower cost than big bands, became popular with agents and ballroom owners. Saxophonist Art Chaney said "[w]e were insulted" when an audience wouldn't dance.
Jump was especially popular in the late 1940s and early 1950s, through artists such as Louis Jordan
, Big Joe Turner
, Roy Brown
, Charles Brown
, T-Bone Walker
, Roy Milton
, Billy Wright
and Wynonie Harris
.
and Brian Setzer
, and is performed today by those including Roomful of Blues
and Mitch Woods
and His Rocket 88s. Contemporary swing bands such as Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers
and The Mighty Blue Kings continue the tradtition.
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
usually played by small groups and featuring horn
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
s. It was very popular in the 1940s, and the movement was a precursor to the arrival of rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
. More recently, there was renewed interest in jump blues in the 1990s as part of the swing revival
Swing Revival
The Swing Revival was a late 1990s and early 2000s period of renewed popular interest in swing and jump blues music and dance from the 1930s and 1940s as exemplified by Louis Prima, often mixed with a more contemporary rock, rockabilly or ska sound, known also as neo-swing or retro...
.
Origins
Jump evolved from big bandBig band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
s such as those of Lionel Hampton
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...
and Lucky Millinder
Lucky Millinder
Lucius Venable "Lucky" Millinder was an American rhythm and blues and swing bandleader. Although he could not read or write music, did not play an instrument and rarely sang, his showmanship and musical taste made his bands successful...
. These early 1940s bands produced musicians such as Louis Jordan
Louis Jordan
Louis Thomas Jordan was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues musician, songwriter and bandleader who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "The King of the Jukebox", Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the...
, Jack McVea
Jack McVea
Jack McVea was an American swing, blues, and rhythm and blues woodwind player; he played clarinet and tenor and baritone saxophone...
, Earl Bostic
Earl Bostic
Earl Bostic was an American jazz and rhythm and blues alto saxophonist, and a pioneer of the post-war American Rhythm and Blues style. He had a number of popular hits such as "Flamingo", "Harlem Nocturne", "Temptation", "Sleep", "Special Delivery Stomp", and "Where or When", which showed off his...
, and Arnett Cobb
Arnett Cobb
Arnett Cobb was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.Cobb was born Arnette Cleophus Cobbs in Houston, Texas. His musical career began with the local bands of Chester Boone, from 1934 to 1936, and Milt Larkin, from 1936 to 1942...
.
Blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
and jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
were part of the same musical world, with many accomplished musicians straddling both genres. Jump blues, or simply "jump," was an extension of the boogie-woogie craze. Jump bands such as the Tympany Five
Tympany Five
Tympany Five was a successful rhythm and blues and jazz dance band founded by Louis Jordan in 1938. The group was composed of a horn section of three to five different pieces and also drums, double bass, guitar and piano. After playing in Chicago at the Capitol Lounge in 1941, Jordan and his band...
, which came into being at the same time as the boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie has the following meanings:*Boogie-woogie, a piano-based music style*Boogie-woogie , a swing dance or a dance that imitates the rock-n-roll dance of the 1950s*"Boogie Woogie" , a song by EuroGroove and Dannii Minogue...
revival, achieved maximum effect with an eight-to-the-bar boogie-woogie style.
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...
recorded a stomping big band blues, "Flying Home
Flying Home
"Flying Home" is a 32-bar AABA jazz composition most often associated with Lionel Hampton, written by Benny Goodman, Eddie DeLange, and Hampton....
," in 1942. Featuring a choked, screaming tenor sax
Tenor saxophone
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...
performance, the song was a hit in the "race" category. When released, however, Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
described the tune as "an unusually swingy side" "with a bright bounce in the medium tempo and a steady drive maintained, it's a jumper that defies standing still". Billboard also noted that Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
had a hand in writing the tune "back in the old Goodman Sextet Days". Billboard went on to state that "Apart from the fact that it is Lionel Hampton's theme, "Flying Home" is a sure-fire to make the youngsters shed their nickels-and gladly."
Five years later Billboard noted inclusion of "Flying Home" in a show that was "strictly for hepsters who go for swing and boogie, and beats in loud, hot unrelenting style a la Lionel Hampton." "...the Hampton band gave with everything, practically wearing itself out with such numbers as Hey Bop a Re Bop, Hamp Boogie and Flying Home..."
Both Hampton and Jordan combined the popular boogie-woogie rhythm, a grittier version of swing-era saxophone styles as exemplified by Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...
and Ben Webster
Ben Webster
Benjamin Francis Webster , a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young...
, and playful, humorous lyrics or verbal asides laced with jive talk
African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English —also called African American English; less precisely Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular , or Black Vernacular English —is an African American variety of American English...
.
As this urban, jazz-based music became more popular, both bluesmen and jazz musicians who wanted to "play for the people" began favoring a heavy, insistent beat. This music appealed to black listeners who no longer wished to be identified with "life down home."
Jump accomplishes with three horns and a rhythm section what a big band does with an ensemble of sixteen. The tenor saxophone is the most prominent instrument in jump. Jump groups, employed to play for jitterbugs at a much lower cost than big bands, became popular with agents and ballroom owners. Saxophonist Art Chaney said "[w]e were insulted" when an audience wouldn't dance.
Jump was especially popular in the late 1940s and early 1950s, through artists such as Louis Jordan
Louis Jordan
Louis Thomas Jordan was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues musician, songwriter and bandleader who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "The King of the Jukebox", Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the...
, Big Joe Turner
Big Joe Turner
Big Joe Turner was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri. According to the songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him." Although he came to his greatest fame in the 1950s with his pioneering rock and roll recordings, particularly "Shake, Rattle and...
, Roy Brown
Roy Brown (blues musician)
Roy James Brown was an American R&B singer, songwriter and musician, who had an influence on the early development of rock and roll music. His "Good Rocking Tonight" was covered by Wynonie Harris, Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Pat Boone, and the rock group Montrose. In addition,...
, Charles Brown
Charles Brown (musician)
Charles Brown , born in Texas City, Texas was an American blues singer and pianist whose soft-toned, slow-paced blues-club style influenced the development of blues performance during the 1940s and 1950s...
, T-Bone Walker
T-Bone Walker
Aaron Thibeaux "T-Bone" Walker was a critically acclaimed American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who was one of the most influential pioneers and innovators of the jump blues and electric blues sound. He is the first musician recorded playing blues with the...
, Roy Milton
Roy Milton
Roy Milton was an American R&B and jump blues singer, drummer and bandleader.-Career:Milton's grandmother was a Chickasaw. He was born in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, United States, and grew up on an Indian reservation before moving to Tulsa, Oklahoma...
, Billy Wright
Billy Wright (musician)
Billy Wright was an American jump blues singer.-Biography:Billy Wright was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Throughout his career, he was known as the "Prince of the Blues." He was a key figure in Atlanta blues after World War II and had a major influence on rock and roll pioneer Little Richard, whom he...
and Wynonie Harris
Wynonie Harris
Wynonie Harris , born in Omaha, Nebraska, was an American blues shouter and rhythm and blues singer of upbeat songs, featuring humorous, often ribald lyrics. With fifteen Top 10 hits between 1946 and 1952, Harris is generally considered one of rock and roll's forerunners, influencing Elvis Presley...
.
Revival
Jump blues was revived in the 1980s by artists such as Joe JacksonJoe Jackson (musician)
Joe Jackson is an English musician and singer-songwriter now living in Berlin, whose five Grammy Award nominations span from 1979 to 2001...
and Brian Setzer
Brian Setzer
Brian Setzer is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He first found widespread success in the early 1980s with the 1950s-style rockabilly revival group The Stray Cats, and revitalized his career in the late 1990s with a jazz-oriented big band.-Career:Setzer was born in Massapequa, New York...
, and is performed today by those including Roomful of Blues
Roomful of Blues
Roomful Of Blues is an American blues and swing revival big band based in Rhode Island. With a recording career that spans over 40 years, they have toured worldwide and recorded many albums. Roomful of Blues, according to The Chicago Sun-Times, “Swagger, sway and swing with energy and precision...
and Mitch Woods
Mitch Woods
Mitch Woods is an American modern day boogie-woogie, jump blues and jazz pianist and singer. Since the early 1980s he has been touring and recording with his band, the Rocket 88s...
and His Rocket 88s. Contemporary swing bands such as Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers
Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers
Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers is the full name of Lavay Smith's band. Smith is an American singer specialising in the Blues and Jazz, from Swing to Bebop...
and The Mighty Blue Kings continue the tradtition.
See also
- African American musicAfrican American musicAfrican-American music is an umbrella term given to a range of musics and musical genres emerging from or influenced by the culture of African Americans, who have long constituted a large and significant ethnic minority of the population of the United States...
- Atomic FireballsAtomic FireballsThe Atomic Fireballs is a Detroit band led by vocalist/songwriter John Bunkley. The group was formed during 1996 and is composed of Bunkley on vocals, James Bostek on trumpet, Tony Buccilli on trombone, Duke Kingins on guitar, Shawn Scaggs on double bass, Eric Schabo on tenor sax, Geoff Kinde on...
- LaVern BakerLaVern BakerLaVern Baker was an American rhythm and blues singer, who had several hit records on the pop chart in the 1950s and early 1960s. Her most successful records were "Tweedlee Dee" , "Jim Dandy" , and "I Cried a Tear" .-Early life:She was born Delores LaVern Baker in Chicago, Illinois...
- Jackie BrenstonJackie BrenstonJackie Brenston was an African American R&B singer and saxophonist, who recorded, with Ike Turner's band, the first version of the proto-rock and roll song "Rocket 88".-Biography:...
- Ruth BrownRuth BrownRuth Brown was an American pop and R&B singer-songwriter, record producer, composer and actress, noted for bringing a pop music style to R&B music in a series of hit songs for Atlantic Records in the 1950s, such as "So Long", "Teardrops from My Eyes" and " He Treats Your Daughter Mean".For these...
- Lowell FulsonLowell FulsonLowell Fulson was a big-voiced blues guitarist and songwriter, in the West Coast blues tradition. Fulson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He also recorded for business reasons as Lowell Fullsom and Lowell Fulsom...
- Wynonie HarrisWynonie HarrisWynonie Harris , born in Omaha, Nebraska, was an American blues shouter and rhythm and blues singer of upbeat songs, featuring humorous, often ribald lyrics. With fifteen Top 10 hits between 1946 and 1952, Harris is generally considered one of rock and roll's forerunners, influencing Elvis Presley...
- Smiley LewisSmiley LewisSmiley Lewis was an American New Orleans rhythm and blues musician. The journalist, Tony Russell, in his book The Blues - From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray, stated "Lewis was the unluckiest man in New Orleans...
- Jimmy LigginsJimmy LigginsJimmy Liggins was an American R&B guitarist and bandleader.-Career:Liggins was born in Newby, Oklahoma, United States. He started out as a professional boxer at age 18 under the name of Kid Zulu, then he quit boxing and took up driving his brother Joe's outfit around on tour...
- Joe LigginsJoe LigginsJoe Liggins was an American R&B, jazz and blues pianist, who was the frontman in the 1940s and 1950s with the band, Joe Liggins and his Honeydrippers....
- Jimmy McCracklinJimmy McCracklinJimmy McCracklin is an American pianist, vocalist, and songwriter. His style contains West Coast blues, Jump blues, and R&B. Over a career that has spanned seven decades, he says he has written almost a thousand songs and has recorded hundreds of them...
- Amos MilburnAmos MilburnAmos Milburn was an African American rhythm and blues singer and pianist, popular during the 1940s and 1950s...
- Jimmy Nelson
- Louis PrimaLouis PrimaLouis Prima was a Sicilian American singer, actor, songwriter, and trumpeter. Prima rode the musical trends of his time, starting with his seven-piece New Orleans style jazz band in the 1920s, then successively leading a swing combo in the 1930s, a big band in the 1940s, a Vegas lounge act in the...
- Swing revivalSwing RevivalThe Swing Revival was a late 1990s and early 2000s period of renewed popular interest in swing and jump blues music and dance from the 1930s and 1940s as exemplified by Louis Prima, often mixed with a more contemporary rock, rockabilly or ska sound, known also as neo-swing or retro...
- Treniers
- West Coast bluesWest Coast bluesThe West Coast blues is a type of blues music characterized by jazz and jump blues influences, strong piano-dominated sounds and jazzy guitar solos, which originated from Texas blues players relocated to California in the 1940s...
- Billy WrightBilly Wright (musician)Billy Wright was an American jump blues singer.-Biography:Billy Wright was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Throughout his career, he was known as the "Prince of the Blues." He was a key figure in Atlanta blues after World War II and had a major influence on rock and roll pioneer Little Richard, whom he...
External links
- Richie Unterberger: Jump Blues at Allmusic.com
- Lindy Hop Style of Dancing used with Jump Blues
- Swing and Jump Blues Guitar Jump Blues Guitar